Eaton Ford (day) - Practicing praise

Paul read 1 Peter 3:8-12 and we thought about the difficulty of forgiving, how easy it is to hold a grudge. Even though we know we shouldn't do it, sometimes it's hard and we wrestle with ourselves.

We talked about friends who need prayer because of illness or other issues in their lives. And Roger raised the subject of praise; he said that we need to practice praise so that it becomes natural to us. The principle is similar to CS Lewis's description in 'The Great Divorce' of a persistent grumbler who runs the risk of eventually becoming, not a grumbler, but in fact merely a grumble. If we are persistent praisers perhaps we can finally attain the state of being a praise!

Roger read Psalm 138 and I mentioned that we don't belong to ourselves, nor do we belong to the world, but we belong to one another and of course we belong to the Lord. Paul prayed for the Tough Talk meeting on Saturday week, then I referred to verse 8 and said that the Lord will fulfill his purpose for Paul, for Roger, and for me. Whatever he plans in our lives he will do. Referring to verse 3, Roger added that he will make all his people bold and stout hearted. We prayed for more of our friends.

We thought about  the fact that there are two kinds of 'knowing' or relationship. For knowing in the mind reason, knowledge, and persuasion are the tools we need. But we need different tools for knowing people in the heart, they are things such as mercy, compassion, and love. Paul added feeling and understanding to the list. We need these to 'be there' for people, to understand how they feel.